allAfrica.com: Sudan: Darfurians in the Civil Service and Education (Page 1 of 3)

This is the eleventh in a series of articles concerning the Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA), explaining how different parts were negotiated, what the paragraphs mean, and how they should be implemented. This article focuses on the question of Darfurian representation in the national civil service and educational institutions. It presents the arguments put forward by both the Movements' negotiators and their Government counterparts and the rationale for why the African Union presented its proposals.

A fair representation of Darfurians at all levels of governmental administration was a fundamental demand put forward by the Darfur Movements in Abuja. The Government delegation did not challenge this point head on. Instead it argued that Darfurians were already well represented in many institutions (for example the army), that it did not make sense to have quotas for Darfurians to be represented in every single institution (should they have equal representation in marine transport, for example?) and that the basis of an independent civil service and autonomous universities should be access based on merit, not place of origin. The Movements and the Government also disagreed on how many Darfurians there are, and who should count as a Darfurian. Sometimes the discussions became extremely technical, for example over how to calculate the percentage of all Sudanese counted in the 1993 census who are Darfurians, given that the full number of Southern Sudanese were not counted in that census. What looks at first like a simple question of fairness can become extremely complicated when it comes to implementing it in practice.

Paragraphs 16-22 of the DPA spell out the basic principles that should govern the representation of Darfurians in all levels of government. The most important details are contained in Paragraph 17, which refers to "relevant precedents and population size", Paragraph 18 which refers to "the principle of inclusion… taking into account the requirements concerning qualifications and competence" and Paragraph 19 which speaks of "affirmative action."

Let us examine these principles one by one. What are the "relevant precedents"? One key point here is that Darfur is not the only disadvantaged part of Sudan and a second point is that the Southern Sudanese and the people of the Nuba Mountains, Blue Nile and Abyei have been awarded a carefully negotiated deal under the CPA. Whatever rights the Darfurians won in the DPA should not be at the expense of the Southerners and the residents of the Three Areas, or whatever provisions might be made for the people of Eastern Sudan.

So, the most important precedent is the CPA. The CPA lays down important principles and mechanisms for transforming Sudan into a democratic multi-ethnic nation in which all people are fairly and equitably represented. The Movements and GoS agreed that the CPA was an excellent precedent: the question was how to implement it, with special reference to Darfur.

The CPA precedent also relates directly to the second principle of "population size." During the North-South talks, the question of the proportion of Sudanese who are Southerners arose. Because no census has been conducted in Southern Sudan since 1955 (and even the reliability of that census is open to question), nobody could say for sure how many Southerners there were in Sudan. The 1993 census counted only about 16% of Sudanese as Southerners, a number which is certainly too low. The CPA contains provision for a national census to be conducted to settle this question--and of course this census will include Darfur. Until this census is conducted, there is no scientific answer to the question "how many Southerners?" Instead, the CPA addressed the question in a political manner--the GoS and SPLM agreed on a "fair" representation for Southern Sudan in the Naivasha negotiations. Their answer to this question was, Southerners are one third of the whole nation. So in the CPA, one third of positions were allocated to Southerners in the National Assembly and other national institutions. 150 out of the 450 seats in the National Assembly are for the South.

The problem facing the Darfurian negotiators at Abuja was, that the 1993 census only counted about 15% of Southerners. It counted 18% Darfurians--and the population of Darfur was growing faster than other parts of Sudan, partly because of immigration from Chad. So some of the Movements' negotiators said that Darfur should get 20% of the seats in the National Assembly and 20% of the posts in the civil service, etc. The Government negotiators did not answer this challenge directly. But it was clear to the Mediators that if they accepted the 20% it would create a problem: they couldn't cut back on the one third given to the South, and to add 20% to 33% would make 53%, leaving just 47% for all the other parts of Sudan--which surely wouldn't be fair either.

The problem was made more difficult because most of the Movements' negotiators argued that Darfur actually represented double that number--forty per cent--or even more of the total population of Sudan. What they meant was not the people residing in Darfur but Sudanese or Darfurian ancestry, a category that includes many Sudanese resident in the capital, in Gezira, eastern Sudan and other parts of the country. But if the Movements were arguing on behalf of all Sudanese of Darfurian origin, they were double-counting those "Darfurians" who live in Khartoum or Wad Medani or anywhere else outside Darfur. These people are entitled to vote and participate as residents of wherever they happen to live--but if they also count as "Darfurians" and therefore give extra weight to the representation of Darfur residents, they count twice over.

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